Brothers in Bond
by rabidsamfan
Summary: Drabbles, ficlets and other reactions to the 2009 film "Sherlock Holmes". Spoilers abound. Rating is to give me room to play.
1. Alternatives

Mary was there, so he turned to the window and made sure his reflection showed no sign of the impact of Clarkie's news, imagination playing the possibilities before his eyes. Watson, staying to guard the machine. Watson, faced with Moriarty. Watson, found with a small-caliber bullet in his head and powder burns on his eyebrows. For the first time he blessed the explosion at the slaughterhouse. If those shoulder wounds hadn't begun to bleed again from the exertion of fighting the Dredger, Watson might not be trying to chase Gladstone at this very moment.

He'd dance at the wedding. Gladly.


	2. Encounter

It would be a point of pride someday, Mary knew, that John trusted her to help him extract the remaining shrapnel from his shoulder, for all that the process made her feel more than a little ill now. She was still winding the bandages around his shoulder when Irene Adler turned up, dressed like a boy. The two women stared at each other across the hospital room until the silence penetrated the morphine haze and John twisted around with a grunt of pain to see who had come in.

"You!" he exclaimed. "I thought you'd be long gone by now."


	3. Elementary

Descending to Blackwood's level to perform the ceremony, however insincerely, was enough to stagger even Holmes's sense of superiority. But it had to be done, and had to be done accurately, even if the only blood spilled was his own. And it was worth it, because the book of spells betrayed the patterns which Blackwood could no more disown than he could cease being a murdering menace. Dirt in the grave for Reardon, death in the water for Sir Thomas, flames in the night for the American ambassador.

Earth, Water, Fire...

And the scent of death already in the Air.


	4. Confidence

An injection of morphine allowed Watson to stump along beside Irene Adler without too much discomfort, but it didn't ease his irritation with her one whit. "Why on earth did you follow us to that slaughterhouse?" he grumbled.

"I didn't," Irene said serenely. "I got there before you, following one of Reardon's associates. Blackwood lied."

He looked down upon her with suspicion. "You got to Reardon's lodgings before we did too," he recalled. "Why didn't you just tell Holmes where they were?"

Her eyes sparkled as she pushed open the door of the Punchbowl. "What, and spoil all his fun?"


	5. Tidings

Lestrade still wasn't sure what had driven him to this quiet parlor, a quarter mile out of his way from one disaster to another. He stood abruptly when the young lady entered the room. _No need to be on your manners,_ he told himself. _She's only a governess, after all. _ But there was something in the queenly way she held herself that had him turning his hat in his hands.

"Miss Morstan?"

"Yes?"

"Pardon me for disturbing you, but as you set his bail the other morning, I thought you ought to know that Dr. John Watson has been injured..."


	6. Consideration

He left the Order and went straight to Baker Street – it was always safer to have Watson along when dealing with Irene Adler – but Watson was sprawled half-dressed atop the counterpane, his walking stick still clutched in one hand and an opened bottle of laudanum spilled upon the bedtable. Like memories, the images came: a long night awake, and a leg strained well-past the point where it could muster even the minor effort of seventeen steps without causing its owner agony.

Five minutes later Watson shifted sleepily beneath the warm, battered dressing gown, and murmured, "Holmes?"

There was no reply.


	7. Departure

She's already managed to get the handcuffs in front of her by the time she sees Sherlock allowing Dr. Watson to fuss over his injured arm far below. But by the time she's gone round to where it is possible to cross the river, he's turned his head. She blows him a kiss, knowing it's just part of the act.

Honest truth? Holmes isn't her weak point, any more than she is his, but Moriarty scares the daylights out of her. She doesn't want to try living in a world where there isn't a Sherlock Holmes to bring him down.


	8. Sorority

Mary takes the stranger stains to Mrs. Hudson, knowing that if any woman in London will have a remedy for the kinds of unlikely substances that adhere to John's clothes, it is the woman who has had to cope with them for the past several years.

The visits invariably devolve into discussions over tea, advice over more than laundry, and a certain satisfaction over the results of the quiet conspiracy they share to keep Gladstone supplied with enough bones for his stomach, and his masters supplied with enough adventures for their souls.

Even if it is hard on the laundry.


	9. Commission

With his bankbook locked in the drawer, and the picklocks still in custody back at the jail, Watson didn't have any choice but to apply to Mrs. Hudson to go back and bail out Holmes. Mary couldn't do it – she'd gone deeply into her savings just getting him out – and Mycroft Holmes was gone on one of his rare sojourns into the country. He'd have accompanied her, except that she wouldn't allow it. "Not with those shadows under your eyes! You go on up and sleep, and give that leg of yours a rest too. I'll see to Mr. Holmes."


	10. Unreasonable

By the time Watson roused from his sleep Holmes had long since come and gone. The newspapers were full of Blackwood's resurrection and the havoc that had been played upon the river traffic by the sudden appearance of an artificial reef midstream. Watson waited for word from Holmes, but word never came, not even so much as a telegram to confirm that he was alive, and gradually worry began to turn to anger. Knowing that his nose was out of joint because Holmes _wasn't_ trying to coax him into coming along didn't help at all.

At midnight, Watson resumed packing.


	11. Doubts

For one, interminable, haze-filled moment he thought that he had summoned a ghost. The arrogant cock of an eyebrow was no reassurance – even Watson's spirit would stand upon its right to insist that he had been doing something foolish last night – but the black strip of cloth supporting the left arm was new, and surely a ghost would be dressed in the brown tweed that Watson had been wearing at the slaughterhouse. Then again, all he had found himself wanting while he performed the ritual was to have Watson safe and whole beside him.

Perhaps magic was useful after all.


	12. Divided

It is Holmes's name John calls when consciousness is returning, and for a moment all Mary can feel is a bright, bitter jealousy. How long will it be, she wonders, before the first name to come to his lips when he has been hurt is her own? But Holmes _would _be here at the hospital, she reminds herself, had she not driven him back into the night by her presence. And the desperation in John's voice reminds her that he does not know what she knows, does not know what he _must_ know, if he is to rest.

"He's alive."


	13. Domesticated

Gladstone knows that Watson is the man to go to when it comes to necessities. Walks, tummy rubs, water dishes, reliable food, the occasional bath; all these things fall into the doctor's purview, although Mrs. Hudson has been known to oblige.

Gladstone never knows when Holmes will go for a walk, or remember to fill his dish, but it's Holmes who talks to him in the middle of the night, and Holmes who always knows just when an ear needs scratching behind. With Holmes he never knows what strange concoctions might need tasting, but that's all right.

He doesn't mind.


	14. Virtues

"I should have warned you," Watson said, as he joined Mary under the canopy. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head to dismiss the apology, but he could see the tears glittering on her eyelashes. "You said he wasn't an easy man to like."

"True enough," Watson said, proffering his handkerchief. "I don't suppose if I'd had the means to live elsewhere I'd have stayed at Baker Street long enough to discover his better qualities."

"Name one," Mary dared him.

"Holmes can never resist a challenge."

She smiled and took Watson's arm. "Then it's just as well that neither can I."


	15. Prop

The first year at Baker Street the walking stick had been a necessity, and the habit of needing it clung still, even though time had healed the wounds of war sufficiently that on a warm day Watson scarcely required it when walking. But it was more than a nicety whenever the weather was changing, or the wind blew cold. And standing still was another matter. There wasn't any one position Watson could depend on for long; sooner or later the leg would go out from under, except for the stick that kept him upright.

Holmes couldn't imagine Watson without it.


	16. Charade

"We need the data," Holmes said, all too patiently. His pupils hadn't yet recovered from whatever he'd done to himself the night before, so he looked slightly madder than usual, but his voice was steady, and his sincerity all too palpable. "This is the only way to obtain it."

"And if it doesn't work?" Lestrade asked, carefully fastening the golden pin under his lapel, trying not to think of its former owner.

"If it doesn't, then I suggest that you use every ounce of your ingenuity to convince the Order that the deception you are about to perpetrate is true."


End file.
